


In your next letter I wish you'd say

by middlemarch



Category: Foyle's War
Genre: F/M, Letters, Marriage, Poetry, Post-Canon, Romance, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 13:00:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11898264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Sunday morning, the Foyles.





	In your next letter I wish you'd say

“You kept these?” Andrew asked, an unnecessary question she might have said as he was holding the letters he’d sent her during the War in his hand, a sort of epistolary wodge of cheap paper liberally daubed with ink, his angular writing and the censor’s stamp. There were a few more in front of him where she had thought he had the Sunday paper and she wondered what he had been looking for to have found them. He wasn’t smiling; she would tread lightly.

“Of course I did. What else would I have done?” She kept the book open on her lap but made no pretense of reading it. It was something Harriet had sent and while she hadn’t gotten deeply engrossed in it yet, she could feel the pull. She’d not waste her first reading when Andrew clearly needed to talk.

“Chucked them when I chucked you?” he retorted, then slapped his free hand down on the table. “Damn it all, that was cruel, I’m sorry, Sam.”

“It was unkind, but more to you than me. D’you truly think I would have thrown out your letters?” she replied, keeping her tone even. She’d been heart-broken once and as bitter as a Stewart could be, but it seemed an eon ago, especially as they sat in their dressing gowns in their small sitting room, the day waiting for them outside, the clutter of her poor housekeeping curiously cozy.

“Yes, I suppose so. They weren’t much,” he said. Oh what a dear, darling fool he was and ever would be! He was hers though and she his and she’d her own fair share of foolishness, now and in the past. It hadn’t been in their vows, in folly and in wisdom, but it could have been. Should have.

“They were. To me,” she replied simply. He rubbed the back of his neck and blinked at her, then glanced at the page in front of him.

“Every other word is blacked out. And they’re sadly lacking in romance or any poetry,” he said. He set a great store by such things and she just didn’t, just as he’d never any satisfaction in repairing anything, from an electric tea-kettle to an engine block. She’d learned how to repair more than gears lately.

“They were poetry enough for me. The missing words made the ones that were left mean more. And sometimes, I let myself imagine what you could have written, what was hidden. A mystery, you know,” she explained. She smiled, not her cheering-up grin, but softly, with the tenderness she found it easier to share at night, when she lay in his arms.

“You’ve always liked mysteries,” he said, setting all the letters down. 

“Yes, that’s true,” she answered.

“Not poetry though, you never seemed to care for it before,” he said. Nearly all the venom and self-loathing had leached from his voice and she relaxed. The book Harriet sent would keep. The day seemed brighter already, though the clouds had not shifted and the pane was spattered with the beginning of rain.

“I’m a selfish beast. I only like it when it is addressed to me, not purely a recitation. I’ve a hankering to be a muse, I suppose,” she said, allowing him the truth. He laughed.

“My muse. You had to work too hard before, with these letters. I’ll write you a proper sonnet now I know it’s what you want,” he declared. He had been quite good about keeping the promises he’d made after they reunited and she imagined it would not only be one sonnet but a week’s worth or a month’s, all shared after midnight, Andrew’s voice serious in the darkness. She shivered with the pleasure of it now and would then too. 

“In the meantime, perhaps you might make a fresh pot of tea for us both? For inspiration…and because my cup has gone quite cold,” she said. He rose to go to the kitchen, but stopped to kiss her, to stroke her cheek gently.

“Yes, my muse. Your wish,” he began and she interjected, unable to resist, before he could finish _is my command_.

“Is for a cup of tea. And don’t forget the tea-cozy!”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Kivrin's lovely head canon about Andrew and St. George Wimsey on Tumblr, I threw this together because Andrew's letters and Sunday morning and ruffled bed-head and tea... And let's all wonder what Harriet sent to Sam!
> 
> The title is from Elizabeth Bishop.


End file.
